National Schools Interoperability Program (NSIP)

Formed in 2010, NSIP has achieved its aim primarily by adopting and maintaining the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) as the preferred mechanism for exchanging data between entities in the schooling sector.

NSIP has successfully implemented the SIF into Australian school education and has used this framework to guide its activities, including providing support and advice to school education stakeholders and developing reference materials. This work has bought stakeholders together to work collaboratively on a number of fronts, leading to:

• a national school data model to aid consistency
• data exchange standards and formats
• industry standards and models that enable the marketplace to provide suitable software product and offerings
• progress towards consistent, high level student identity management, within and across schools and school systems, as a precursor to improving the mobility, utility and appropriate security of information about students and learning.

This work has been integral to supporting national, state and sector initiatives, such as NAPLAN Online and classroom-based assessments.

NSIP continues to support these programs, while looking to support future needs such as:

• providing support for national, school system and school stakeholders, through the provision of contextualised, specific and relevant analysis and insight, to deliver measurable improvements in educational outcomes
• meeting the needs and expectations of teachers who will increasingly rely on real-time information and longitudinal data, drawn from a variety of sources, to inform differentiated learning programs for individual students
• the growing marketplace for educational software to ensure that the commercial solutions available to schools, school systems and the Australian Government are increasingly standards-based and interoperable
• maintaining frameworks and standards to keep pace with an evolving market and ensure benefits flow to all sector participants, particularly schools and school systems.